I am resurrecting this thread to complain about a writing trend I'm seeing more and more frequently. For lack of a better term, I call it Unnecessary Possession. Here are a couple of examples:

"Yesterday, I had a man cut in line in front of me at the grocery store.""At work this morning, we had a client come in and immediately start yelling at the receptionist."

It bugs me every time I see it. What's the matter with:

"Yesterday at the grocery store, a man cut in line in front of me.""At work this morning, a client came in and immediately started yelling at the receptionist."

Interesting observation! I think I'm guilty of that! I'm going to start paying attention to what I say in order to avoid it.

I'm definitely guilty of this! Mostly because I really dislike interposed sentences when they can be avoided, and would rather use unnecessary possession (love it!) instead.

Of course "Yesterday a man cut in front of me at the grocery store" would be even better than both those examples

I know I do stuff like that when I'm speaking, but try to avoid it when writing.

My all time 'favorite' is still, "I had went."

There's also a new one, which I've seen used repeatedly on TV by educated intelligent people. Say a PhD is on a talk show to promote a new book about a theory she has. The host asks, "What is the book about?" and the author always starts the sentence with,"...so." To me the word "so" is the way to continue a topic, not begin one.

I had a magazine hand delivered to my office yesterday, it's basically a magazine filled with pretty full color ads. A couple of short, fluffy articles and some wedding announcements.

Filled with typos! One sentence just didn't sound right...taking care of customer's base needs (well that just sounds naughty). One of the old, local family names is misspelled in a headline, a couple fell in live while working together, Mr Warren joint the military, they wedding took place, another misspelled name in the body of the article about said person, spectacular ball event for local charity has charity name butchered (Sky High instead of High Sky), etc. It's horrible.

I'm not even halfway through the magazine, obviously they only relied on spell check and did not actually proof this.

It also opens with a letter about SHOPPING LOCAL, then in the next column you find out the mag is published in another city by a couple of ladies that actually live in other town (over 200 miles away).

I sent an email asking them to please proofread future issues. These are not minor infractions IMO, this is just laziness.

Ugh, that one drives me nuts too! (Although I admit to being amused the one time someone accidentally typed prostate as phosphate...)

"Crukid" for crooked. I used to know someone who did that regularly and would not be corrected, throwing tantrums that they were absolutely correct and anyone who corrected them needed to go back to school.

Ugh, that one drives me nuts too! (Although I admit to being amused the one time someone accidentally typed prostate as phosphate...)

"Crukid" for crooked. I used to know someone who did that regularly and would not be corrected, throwing tantrums that they were absolutely correct and anyone who corrected them needed to go back to school.

One of my DD's friends has taken to using "16" to replace "is" wherever it appears in texts. I asked DD why friend does this, and she doesn't know, but friend claims she won't do it in important writing.

I was buying apples from a fruit stall and the young man was serving me with one hand and texting with the other. He said to me "How do you spell Chew?" and mimed chewing on an orange from the stall. I spelled C_H_E_W and he tapped it into his phone and took the £1 he was charging for the scoop of apples.

Ugh, that one drives me nuts too! (Although I admit to being amused the one time someone accidentally typed prostate as phosphate...)

"Crukid" for crooked. I used to know someone who did that regularly and would not be corrected, throwing tantrums that they were absolutely correct and anyone who corrected them needed to go back to school.